Beverly

One form of inquiry project is having my students choose a career they are interested in pursuing, and then developing questions about what is required to prepare for that career, and what that career actually entails (salary, hours, location, etc.)  Challenges involve the work they do is not very interesting to them...it begins as online investigation, and even when guided to career databases by our media specialist, they groan and balk at using those databases.  I wonder if it's better to start with finding a person who is involved in their chosen career and ask them questions before tackling the database work?  This might motivate them to delve into the material, once they see it in action.  It's hard for students to get excited about numbers on a screen...they need to connect to the flesh and bone aspects of the research first.

I am a language teacher, but curiosity in any classroom is fostered by starting with the words, "What do you notice?" and encouraging students to use all five senses if possible.  Then you can build upon the notice statements with follow up questions.  To get to the observational/experimental level, it helps to ask them to wonder about how what they see right in front of them connects with what is going on outside this small space.  When they think about connections, this is when the questions and then possible experimental options arise...

I really liked the continuum presented in the video showing the difference between closed and open-ended questions.  As educators, I think we can model our own development of open-ended questions and then also show that we don't know the answer right away, and that is OK!  In fact, it's even desirable!  This is a mind-shift for students, who go through much of school thinking they have to already have the correct answer to a question when asked.  I also think that placing students in environments where there are events to observe and wonder is important, such as right outside the classroom, school or even their own window!

The practice I strive to model in my teachings, whatever the subject, is to attend to the unexpected.  I am always showing my students how I am learning right alongside them, even with texts I have taught many times, because each time you approach any text, or any learning situation, the outcome and responses will vary according to the readers or observers.  What is created between the observed and the observer is the learning, and this is the thing that is always unexpected, and why teaching never gets old!

I am not a science teacher, but rather an ESL teacher of secondary students.  One of the challenges for my students is using academic language in their content classes.  I'm taking this course as a way of helping to learn the language necessary for successful participation in science classes and potentially the larger scientific community.  I think that teaching students ahead of time about the different levels of inquiry, the difference between engineering and scientific questioning and how and when these are used, and then teaching my students the language genres that are specific to both and how, why and when they are used would be the most beneficial thing for them going into any of their science classes.  I think that any lesson I design that ties into their science content area would be to teach them the language of inquiry up front, with examples, so that they feel confident using that language in their classes.  We can study models of this using real-life examples of others conducting inquiries, pick apart those models for language usage, and then work together to create our own inquiry using that language.